The seven circles of hell, or, why you should never, ever say "Bring it on!"

Let's recap.

Ian had croup.

Then I got mastitis.

Then Ian and Max got RSV.

Then I got a UTI, which required an incredibly humiliating visit to the ob/gyn with all four of my children on Valentine's Day. (There will be a post coming about this visit later. Wait for it. It will be good.)

Monday and Tuesday of last week, Ian got the stomach flu. We narrowly escaped a visit to the ER for rehydration, but I did not escape being barfed on over and over again. Neither did our poor bedsheets. Monday afternoon, I bummed some Zofran off a friend for my poor sick baby and burst into tears when she brought it over.

"Thank you," I cried, "I can't handle another doctor visit this week, I just can't."

Enter Thursday morning. I had just gotten Max dressed and walked into my room when I heard an ominous crash followed by a scream. Both my boys have an unfortuate penchant towards climbing. Well, it's not the climbing that's unfortunate. It's the falling.

There was much blood, and many tears, and a definite realization that stitches were needed. Awesome.

Luckily, my pediatrician can do stitches in office, so I met Tom at the office, where we experienced Max's continued fear of all things medical, and learned that it would take four full grown adults to hold him down so he could get three stitches in his forehead. It was truly miserable for all involved. Luckily, a quick stop for ice cream managed to win his affection back, and by the time we got home, he was acting as if nothing had ever happened.

I congratulated myself. On Monday, I didn't think I was going to be able to cope with another doctor visit, and on Thursday morning we survived stitches. I was pretty proud of myself. "Bring it on, Universe," I jokingly bragged to a friend, "What else do you have? I can take it!"

Yup, I was feeling pretty smug. That was until midway through my first violin lesson of the afternoon, when my girls thundered down the stairs to announce that Max had thrown up everywhere. They weren't exaggerating. To spare you the grossness, let's just say that by the time I was done teaching, the carpets on two floors needed to be cleaned, seven towels, one blanket and three outfits of Max's needed to be washed, and two older siblings were incredibly grossed out.

The best part was when the pediatrician's office called to check on us, and upon hearing that he was throwing up, directed us to go directly to Primary Children's for a CT. You see, protocol for vomiting following a head injury is immediate examination at the ER. It took a while for me to convince them that yes, I was certain he just had the stomach flu, and no he wasn't slurring his words or falling down for no reason, and no, I didn't need to drive to Salt Lake, spend hours in the ER and thousands of dollars to be told he had the stomach flu.

So I begged my husband to bring home a carpet cleaner, we got some pizza and donuts and went to work. Two hours later, the carpets were clean, Max was asleep, and Abby was barfing.

Ian, however, was wide awake and thrilled to be able to participate in the carpet cleaning.

I went to sleep with my stomach turning, willing myself not to be sick until Friday night, after my students' masterclass. It didn't work. 3am found me in the shower, and my dear sweet husband scrubbing the floor, cleaning up after me. At 7 am, it was his turn. We spent the next few hours laying in bed, sipping Sprite, moaning, cancelling my masterclass, and begging the girls to fetch this or that. The kids spent the whole day watching cartoons, a wonderful dear neighbor brought us soup for dinner, and we spent Saturday digging ourselves out from under approximately 67 loads of laundry and the wreckage that inevitably results from leaving four kids to fend for themselves all day.

So what have we learned from this whole experience? It will be a long time before we order pizza again, it's wonderful when your kids are old enough to understand the concept of a barf bucket, and that I should never, ever challenge the universe to bring it on.